


além-mar, or beyond the sea

by SearchingforSerendipity



Series: o fado do desterrado [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Colonialism, Colourism, Immigration & Emigration, Kid Fic, Mentions and aftermath of racist violence, New York in the 20s, Period-Typical Racism, Portuguese Daniel Sousa, Portuguese immigrants, Roman Catholicism, character backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Even his name sounded differently in English. Dai-nie-el. The <em>a<em></em></em>s got pebble-smooth and the <em>i<em></em></em>s were spoken delicately, like something breakable.<br/><em></em><br/>He didn't like it."<br/><em></em><br/><em>A look at Daniel Sousa's childhood as a Portuguese immigrant in New York.</em><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	além-mar, or beyond the sea

 

  
Daniel didn't remember much of the journey. He'd been sick most of it, some stomach bug that got the old people and the children on the boat. It was years later that he learned a girl around his age had died of it. At the time he'd been too busy sweating and crying in their cramped cabin, far too small for a family of seven.

He remembers the arrival. His Mamã let him out of bed to watch the shoreline grow closer. He remembers Ellis Island like an almond shell, the big statue of the lady in the strange dress. The building, higher than the Sé they'd seen in Lisbon. Taller than every church tower in the world on top of each other.

"Mamã, where are we going?" He'd asked, afraid. He knew they were going to America but he'd never thought it would be so tall. Zé had said it would be like Lisbon but this wasn't like Lisbon at all. It was bigger and meaner and even from the boat he could see all the cars.

"We're going to Nova Iorque filho. It's our new home."

His sisters Isabel and Catarina had ooed and awed, São had widened her eyes like the sun and smiled just as bright. Zé had laughed, glad to be off the boat soon. There had been silence where and Helder and Rodrigo were supposed to speak.

Daniel had cried a bit, clung to his mother and longed for home.

\--

They were seven now. They were missing o Pai and his older brothers, but Mamã had said they'd come live with them as soon as they could. Daniel, who thought his brothers were taller than most trees and whose father lead the men during cork harvest, didn't doubt for a moment. Not at first.

 

("Mamã, when is Papá coming?"

"Soon Isabel, as soon as he can."

 

"Mamã, when is Helder coming? We need someone else for the football team. 

"Go ask one of the neighbors Daniel, he's not here yet."

 

"Is Rodrigo sick? We haven't gotten any letter from his lately."

"I don't know, São, just try to write him again. We'll pray ten Hail Marys for his soul, just-"

"In case."

"Sim.")

 

\--

English was stupid. The words were too strange, too round. They twisted around his tongue and made him stumble, and the others children laughed at him. They didn't have enough verbs and they were disrespectful. How was he supposed to look his teachers in the eye and call them you like his siblings? He was quite certain he'd never dare to talk his Mãe like that.

Zé thought it was easy. Thought it was simple, and he used it all the time. He said they should try to speak English as often as they could, so they could learn faster and not stand out so much.

"Compared to English, Portuguese is so complicated."

"We're complicated people." Said Maria da Conceição. Everyone called her São back at home but here she wanted people to call her by her full name, like a grandmother. She would stare at them and not speak until they got it right.

'If they don't care to get my name they don't get to have my words.' she'd said, and argue until people were too tired to go one. She was never too tired to argue, though. Daniel suspected she liked it.

He admired her a lot, but it didn't stop her from having a hard time finding a job. People didn't want to learn the name of a grubby little immigrant from Portugal. Here, people thought Portugal was part of Spain.

"What?" Zé had asked when São had told them that. "Those palermas, don't they know any history?"

"I don't think they're much interested in our history." Mãe said, wry and sensible and more than a little bitter. With only a grown man in the house food was just enough to balance out the three other mouths they didn't have to feed, but it was tight sometimes. They had friends among the neighbors but no family, and she was a proud woman.

She, more than any of her children, had a hard time learning the language and ways of this strange, busy land.

In Alentejo, where they were from, nothing happened. There was work, church, the same people everyday, the same sounds and foods. It was a slow life, a tired, well worn life. She'd wanted to see more of the world as a young girl, but now she fell asleep listening to the insomniac New York and longed for the cicadas, her husband's warmth, for the bone-deep silence of the fields.

Gone was that child. Estefânia Sousa was a woman now, mother of seven. Even away from the yellow merciless sun, the yellow merciless fields, she had her God and some of her children. She knew how to swallow the truth and be glad if it filled her a little bit. The Sousa's were no strangers to hunger.

They would pull through, and if they didn't there would go the the arms of the Father Above, and be thankful for His care.

\--

But willful ignorance wasn't good enough for Zé. He always wanted to know something more. That's why he had come with them, Daniel knew, to be the man of the house and to get his studies while Dad and the boys stayed home until they could get money for the travel. He was the smartest of the boys, whole São was the oldest girl. She was smarter than anyone else, and wouldn't let them forget it.

Daniel was the second youngest at six. Isabel was the youngest, and she was almost a baby. Mãe still fed her from her breast because it was cheaper than getting mild, even thought she three. Rodrigo was her favorite, but since he wasn't here Daniel decided to become her favorite. Mãe had said she wouldn't remember the other boys, and Zé was too busy trying to get in college. Daniel had never even known what a college was before going to Lisbon and his brother explained that it was a big school for smart grown ups. Zé would try to get there, and then he'd have a better job and they'll have better food and more beds and new clothes.

The food was better here anyway, though. They got meat, real meat, not just legs and head and guts with bread and olive. Mãe had made friends with the other Portuguese ladies in the neighborhood, they worked at the same factory, and so now she knew the best place to buy beef and linguiça and proper wine. Daniel was nearly eight now, so he could have a little cup while the adults talked.

Zé had been saving from his job at the grocer's to get a real hamburger, with fries and everything. He'd promised to bring them some fries too.

He got home bloody and swearing, missing a tooth and fries.

"Those filhos da puta, they kicked me out!" He bellowed, furious. Mom (they called her mom now, sometimes, except Isabel that a,ways cried Mamã! Mamã) wasn't home and Catarina was at a friends. Zé's nose was dripping blood. Isabel cried against Daniel's shirt and they both stared, frozen. "They said I wasnt allowed to sit there! Porra de país."

"Why not?" Daniel asked, hurt on his brother's behalf.

"Because of his skin, parvo." São said, coming from the kitchen with a wet towel. "We don't all look like milk the way you do Daniel.

That wasn't the first time Daniel had noticed it but it had never mattered before. Pai and the boys had brown skin, and São and Isabel. Mom's was lighter, a little bit, from working indoors in the big house when it wasn't harvest time. Catarina had skin like Daniel's. They had teased her for it, at home, called her an English lady. It hadn't been a compliment.

São had taken over after that, sitting Zé down and helping him clean the blood away. Catarina and Daniel started in dinner, slicing the cabbage and trying to decide if the bread was too stale to go with the soup. A Mãe got home eventually and helped them get Isabel away from the knives. The dinner was good but they didn't taste it. They ate it all, of course, but it was sad, and angry, and Zé couldn't chew properly with the gums bleeding.

The boys slept in the sitting room. Zé took the blankets on the floor and Daniel got the sofa cause he was littler. They took a long time falling asleep. He could hear Zé trembling in the ground, maybe crying, maybe furious.

"Next time," Daniel whispered,"I'll sit with you, and that way they won't throw us out. You'll see."

Zé laughed a little and called his estúpido but he stopped trembling after that.

Daniel didn't, but there was no one to notice.

\--

Even his name sounded differently in English. Dai-nie-el. The as got pebble-smooth and the is were spoken delicately, like something breakable, weak.

He didn't like it.

\--

Every morning they would pray. They prayed all the time -before meals and after falling asleep and when they wanted to go home. They prayed for the family left behind, for the future. Mom prayed the longest. She had a rosary of chipped wooden beads that she clutched between her hands while on her knees. It was her grandmother's, so it was a treasure and none of the little ones could touch it.

Daniel used to pray to go home, but now he didn't so much. He had friends, now, and he knew all the good places to play around the neighborhood, and he’d found he liked baseball quite a lot. He prayed his thanks to God at night for that if nothing else. He prayed in the mornings too now. At home they would pray before classes. But now he had to stand up and say the American hymn instead.

Even before he knew English properly he knew the words. The other boys spoke them between yawns, hands scratching at their chest, but Daniel had thought they were praying so he stood still and didn't yawn, even when his jaw ached from holding it back. You didn't yawn during prayer.

It was only some months after that Mãe realized they weren't actually praying in the morning. After that they all got together and prayer at breakfast twice, once before eating and then after. But by then Daniel was already used to saying the hymn like he meant it.

\--

After school, he, Catarina and São would stay with Mr Peterson and learn English. Really, it was his wife that thought them, because his Portuguese wasn't very good. Dona Mafalda gave them sentences to translate alone, and a dictionary to use only if they had to.

  
Word by word Daniel learned the language of his new home. Pássaro was bird, escola was school, árvore was tree. Mãe was Mother, or Mom; irmã was sister, irmão, brother. Céu was sky. Nova Iorque was New York.

Every afternoon he learned at least five new words. In time, he learned to read one more sentence, write one more paragraph.

\--

After being thrown out of the restaurant, Zé read a lot. He'd brought all the books they had, and he poured over them at night, counting kings by the fingers. By the time he got to D. José, his namesake, he was scowling. Then he did it all over again, scow turning darker. He called the Kings names and the presidents as well.

He also got books from his friends. Small books, with angry slogans and little letters. He read them at night after prayer, made Daniel swear by Vó's grave not to tell their Mãe. Daniel even got to read some of the books, the history ones, but now Zé got quiet when he asked questions. He didn't seem to agree with the books much anymore.

One day he brought a friend home. His name was Gabriel. He was very kind and very funny, especially to the younger ones. Isabel was a bit scared at first, but he made voices with her doll. After that she clung to him like a monkey.

"Since our names rhyme we'll have to be friends." He'd told Daniel very seriously, even though everyone called him Gabe. They'd shaken hands like men and played dominos.

Mom was very angry when she met Gabriel. She and Zé had a very loud discussion,which Daniel wasn't supposed to overhear. São got into it when she came home and it got louder after that.

("I don't see what your problem is Mãe. Gabriel is nice, a good frien-"

"You know exactly what my problem is José Carlos Sousa!"

"Don't you see that you're sounding like the men that look down of us? For the exact same reason, in fact?"

"Don't you start talking back to me. If your father were here..."

"He's not, is he? I'm the man of the house now, and-"

"The man of the house? You're the man of the house when you start bringing in proper money, instead of gallivanting about with your political friends."

"It's hardly my fault that they don't pay you and São as much as me! And my political friends, as you call them, are trying to make women have better pay."

"Women and Gabe, I bet. For the love of God, I won't have one of those in my house!"

"Do you think God would think that very Christian of you."

"Shut _up_ São.")

In the end Zé and Gabe continued to be friends. He couldn't come inside their home, but it was alright by Daniel. It was summer by then, and they could take the dominos outside and play with a ball. Gabe was a great player.

  
\--

The summer of 1928 was nothing like any summer of Daniel's before.

Back at home, summer was red. The fields went orange, yellow, green, the sky spotless blue, but the sun was red. The wheat would be taller than him, and he and his friends would hide and scream, try to jump on each other. The cork oak's would have new bark, making them rough. He remembered how his hands got sticky when he touched them, how he'd watched his father to go with the men for weeks at a time, hands heavy with axes.

He would spend the days helping the women at the orchard. Daniel had been small enough to climb the trees and shake the branches for Catarina and São to catch in the baskets. They would sweat all the time and drink from the same ceramic cup by the well while the grown women weaved new baskets under the shade.

Last year their pig had had a litter, and Daniel had played with the little piglets. One time, a piglet escaped to the sunflower fields, and they had all to run around calling 'ó porco! oink oink, anda cá ó porco!'" His Pai had shot the pig after it trampled the sun flowers, and the Senhor, the owner of the big fields, let them have it. They ate well that summer.

The summer of 1928 was spent in their small flat. It was part of a five story building, painted blue once but now it was a sad gray. It was so odd, to live on the third floor, inside grey walls. All the houses back home were white, to keep the heat away. In New York the heat got everywhere, heavy but never dry enough.

Daniel spent that summer making new friends. Their parents were farmers, fishers, carpenters. It was largely Portuguese neighborhood, a village inside a city of villages, a little like home, a little like Lisbon. Everyone spoke Portuguese, some even with the same accent as him. He didn't have to worry about speaking right or whether he would know his name if it was called or whether they knew the same games he did.

He worked, too. At the grocers with Zé, but other times as well. He read English. Laying down in the sidewalk, he stared at the white-dotted sky in between reading comics and the Rover Boys. By the time the seasons rolled around to autumn, he could say his rolling as and lengthened is as well as anybody else in his family.

After that first day of classes he stayed behind. Mr Peterson was cleaning the board with a sponge when he came beside him.

( "My brother is going to college, sir."

"Is he? Good for him, I say. You might to, if you work hard. Your English coming along very nicely."

"I don't think my Mom would like that.

"Oh? Well, there are lots of other things you can do. Work at a shop, on a factory, go to the army-"

"The army, sir?"

"Why, it's a good calling, isn't it? Defend your home and country. You're an American men now, Daniel. If you're very brave, the army might do well for you."

"Yes sir."

"Why that face? Don't worry, you won't have to go to war. If you don't want to. I doubt there will be another one soon, after the last."

"I hope so too, sir.")

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title means 'the fate of the landless.'


End file.
